


True You

by SpacialTangent



Category: Borderlands
Genre: Enemies With Benefits, F/M, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Hugs, I'm still bad at summaries, Insecurity, Kissing, Short & Sweet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-08
Updated: 2016-10-08
Packaged: 2018-08-20 04:42:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8236486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpacialTangent/pseuds/SpacialTangent
Summary: Just a short, fluffy drabble about Maya and Jack, because this is a ship that deserves so much more love. Wrote this quite a while ago, but just posting now because I am a shy bean.





	

    "For the last time, Maya, NO!" The siren frowned at the sudden outburst, cuddled up next to her mortal enemy-with-benefits. "C'mon. It can't be that bad. You know that I don't care. If I cared, I wouldn't be sleeping with the man that I'm supposed to kill." Her fingers idly fiddled with the metal clasps and surrounding skin that marked the beginning of his synthetic flesh. It was cooler than the rest of his body, smooth and soft but unnaturally so. She could hear sniffling. She raised an eyebrow in disbelief. Never had she seen the Hyperion CEO so vulnerable, not even when they were together in bed. 

This exposure of emotion was waking instincts and feelings in her that she didn't really pay much attention to until now. She shook it off. It was nothing. "Don't be like that." She sneered involuntarily at this display that was most likely faked for her sympathy. He was a deceiver by nature, and few things, if any, could change that. "It's not you..." He mumbled, grabbing her hand to keep it from wandering any further. Gone was his usually bombastic personality, dropping to a more quiet one. All of the mental blockades he built were demolished in one fell swoop. He was being honest with her. Handsome Jack and the word "honest" were almost always at least one hundred feet away from each other at all times. The realization hit her like a ton of bricks. This really hurt him, and she didn't realize how bad it truly was. Despite her shooting raiders for a living, she didn't like to hurt people. 

The harsh siren gently rested her forehead against his, one hand lightly running through his perfect hair. She wanted to know what he tried to keep from others so much. And she felt... She didn't know. She was sad for him, like she would be when she saw an injured skag pup limping about or a baby rakk lying helpless with a broken wing. She wanted to help, somehow, for reasons she couldn't explain. "I will never think any less of you. Hell, you're already kinda low in my book, with the whole murdering innocent people thing, but that's beside the point. I want to see you. The true you. There will be no judgement, no questions, no disgust. Only acceptance and understanding." A tiny smile from him. "I don't deserve you, pumpkin." He shook his head sadly. She rolled her eyes at this sentimentality she was fairly unused to. "Wow. The man who wants and has everything doesn't deserve me, a filthy bandit." He looked at her softly, pain in his odd colored eyes. He knew that he couldn't hide from her, not anymore. Not after all this time. Because of the way he felt about her. Things he hadn't felt since... His late wife.

He paused for a minute and took a deep breath, his fingers slowly moving to the edges of his mask. "You sure you wanna see this? It... It ain't pretty." "Yes. I do. One hundred percent." He sighed both in defeat and in shame. With a barely audible click, the snaps came undone. He set the false face down between them. Maya was careful not to shift her expression in the slightest. There before her was a man, shattered, almost broken beyond repair and desperately trying to hide it. A man trying to cling on to the past, vainly. One wrong move on her part and he could crack for good. It was like trying to pick shrapnel out of flesh after a gunfight. If you were anything but delicate, things would get exponentially more painful and the shreds would be much harder to extract.

His face was pale from lack of exposure, especially compared to the surrounding skin that was tanned and roughed from the brutal Pandoran sun. He finally showed a bit more of his true age with little wrinkly streams sand scars on his skin. A large, blue tinted vault symbol was branded on him that ran up one side of his face and down the other, taking out his right eye. An injury unable to be healed even with eternities of time, a wound both physical and mental. He was watching her intently with his one good cobalt blue eye for any sign of disdain or horror. None came. Just silence and a straight face, maybe concern if you squinted.

He looked like he was on the verge of crying. There was no sarcasm, no narcissism, no bitter anger that absorbed him from day to day. Underneath that mask he was just a weakened, battered shell of a man that had been rejected and abandoned and betrayed one too many times. She knew the feeling. "I-I kn-know, I'm hi-hi-hideous..." He breathed in short, choked gasps, attempting to hold back tears. Her brows knit together in pity. "Shh, no, no. None of that." She soothed, wiping away a few drops from his cheek and allaying his fear with a light kiss on his lips. His mismatched eyes fluttered closed in pleasure for a moment at the touch of her skin against his before he glanced up at her. Another small, yet genuine smile. He looked relieved. Thankful to be rid of the heavy burden he carried with him all the time, at least when he was around her. He was Atlas with the world on his shoulders, and she was Elpis, the hope left in Pandora's box.

Maya held him in her arms, kissing him and tracing the rut of the scar on his head over and over in a soft, steady rhythm until his body stopped shaking. She'd then begun to explore his features more closely, her fingers deftly memorizing every little imperfection. They both sighed contentedly. "Life is a little less scary with you here..." He whispered, squeezing her tight. All of these different emotions that she'd hidden away, brought out of hiding by the cruel dictator of Pandora and likewise, those he hid by a vault hunter. She loved him, as much as she'd hate to admit it. Every part of him. The azure upside-down V scar that marred his face, his milky white eye blinded by injury, everything. Now he was Jack. Not Handsome Jack, the twisted Hyperion executive. Just Jack, perhaps the hero of a different story. "Same. And... Thank you, for showing me. You're even more handsome than you were before."


End file.
